Watashi ga Motete Dousunda (lit. I suddenly became popular) a.k.a. Kiss Him, Not Me, a manga that has long been among my favourites is now an anime. While as with books and movies adaptations between manga and anime don't always do justice to the original work, this one looks very promising.

Some terminology:

Harem.

Several girls fighting over one guy. In WoT Rand is the guy Min, Aviendha and Elayne are three of the girls, but not the only ones.

Harem King.

The central male character of a Harem.

There are different degrees and types to harems. In WoT the different romances are sub-plots, background to the main story. In anime most harems are set up against the slice of life background typically highschool. In this the romance is the point of the story. There are however many anime where the romance is just a sub-plot and many points between the two extremes.

Reverse Harem.

A harem with genders swapped. Several boys comepeting over the attention of the Reverse Harem Queen. This is what Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah want to be. Some of them anyway. Egwene has a reverse harem, though it is of a lesser degree than Rand's harem.

Otaku.

A person obsessed with a hobby. Typically the hobby is manga and anime, but it can be something else. A gun otaku is a person who knows a lot about guns to the point of the minute details. We are all WoT otaku or Wotaku.

Yaoi.

Love between boys or men.

Yuri.

Love between girls or women.

Fujoshi.

A female otaku obsessed with Yaoi. To WoT this would be a female fan who enjoys fanfiction where for example Rand and Mat are a couple.

Now back to Watashi ga Motete Dousunda. This is a story about a fujoshi who suddenly becomes a Reverse Harem Queen. It is absolutely hilarious.

I'm not going to reveal any further plot points, but there is a great deal of potential for crossover humour because of the voice actors. One of my habits is to always check the voice actors of an anime and WgMD has a pretty impressive cast.

Our female lead is voiced by Kobayashi Yuu who is also the voice of Sasha Braus (the potato girl) in Shingeki no Kyojin. The boys' voices are all impressive names in the industry and while Kaji Yuki (Eren Jaeger) is unfortunately not one of them (that would have been beyond hilarious) they have all played the role of a Harem King in a different anime, some more than once. Having watched some of those anime I now have a mental image of Sasha confronting the multitude of female characters from the other shows (drawn as chibis naturally) and declaring boldly: "All your Harem Kings are belong to me!"

One of my favorite anime series is Working!! Slice of life and comedy series, with traces of romance. The first 3 seasons all tie into one another, and surprisingly wrap up all the various plots in satisfying ways. Another Working series, based off the manga, is being released, and one could think of it as taking place in a branch restaurant. Both are heavily character driven, but pretty funny, without being perverse.

Well there are several traps for the unwary. There are shows that constantly make references to other anime and manga. Hayate no Gotoku! is one such though definitely worth watching when you are familiar with the more famous shows. There are shows that require familiarity with the mental framework of modern Japanese culture. Most slice of life stuff relies on this. Then of course there is the factor of sex and violence. How much of either can you handle? And beyond them are the shows that go to places that have a more subtle darkness to it. Gantz is a show like that. Sex, violence and a very dark tone.

So what kind of a story would you like to see and what kind of content are you comfortable with?

Have you watched any of Miyazaki's films? They are a somewhat eclectic group, but some really great films. Castle of Cagliostro is a mix of comedy, crime-drama, and a Byronic anti-hero, Lupin III. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds has a heroine and a strong environmental message, and with a elderly swordmaster, Lord Yupa, that is quite similar to Lan. Kiki's Delivery Service is a light-hearted drama/comedy about a witch-in-training who works as a delivery girl in Europe. Porco Rosso is, as the name implies, about a humanoid pig fighter-pilot. Princess Mononoke is a mix of fantasy and samurai style drama. That one is a really great movie. Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky are both quite good too.

As for series, have you ever seen Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo? Those are both pretty wide appeal type anime, that tend to be easy starting points for western audiences.

Terez we are all otaku who obsess over WoT. You made a database for it. You might not be a fujoshi, but you can't escape being an otaku.

Well, in the general sense, sure. But it's usually used in the West to refer to weeb types, and I don't watch enough anime to qualify. However, with the anime I do watch, I'm definitely a fujoshi, lol.

In other words, I'm not avoiding the term because I find it insulting/degrading but because I don't want to claim some sort of anime geek status I haven't earned.

But, I mod r/dbz now so I guess that makes me an otaku. The DBS simulcast premiered tonight on Crunchyroll, Daisuki, and AnimeLab, and we totally crashed Crunchyroll's servers, for like two hours straight. A friend of mine capped this hilarious tweet (One Piece airs right after Super on Japanese TV):

Well, in the general sense, sure. But it's usually used in the West to refer to weeb types, and I don't watch enough anime to qualify. However, with the anime I do watch, I'm definitely a fujoshi, lol.

In other words, I'm not avoiding the term because I find it insulting/degrading but because I don't want to claim some sort of anime geek status I haven't earned.

But, I mod r/dbz now so I guess that makes me an otaku. The DBS simulcast premiered tonight on Crunchyroll, Daisuki, and AnimeLab, and we totally crashed Crunchyroll's servers, for like two hours straight. A friend of mine capped this hilarious tweet (One Piece airs right after Super on Japanese TV):

I take the Japanese view on the word. You don't have to be Japanese or obsess over something Japanese to be an otaku. You can translate it to "hardcore fan freak" if you want, but an otaku is an otaku. It's simply a Japanese word for a certain kind of person that exists everywhere on this planet. And probably on other planets as well. And colonizable moons. And spaceships. The meaning of the word is universal.

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda (lit. I suddenly became popular) a.k.a. Kiss Him, Not Me, a manga that has long been among my favourites is now an anime. While as with books and movies adaptations between manga and anime don't always do justice to the original work, this one looks very promising.

I watched the first episode of this tonight. It looks cute, but I'm not fond of the way the otaku/fujōshi are portrayed, generally. It's pretty insulting. Does that aspect get better? I mean, they present the common fujōshi myths from the POV of the main character as truth, but her best friend is a normal girl with a boyfriend and also a fujōshi, so there's some cognitive dissonance already. But it looks like they're setting her up to become a "normal" girl herself, as if she needs to grow out of her boylove obsession, or something.

I watched the first episode of this tonight. It looks cute, but I'm not fond of the way the otaku/fujōshi are portrayed, generally. It's pretty insulting. Does that aspect get better? I mean, they present the common fujōshi myths from the POV of the main character as truth, but her best friend is a normal girl with a boyfriend and also a fujōshi, so there's some cognitive dissonance already. But it looks like they're setting her up to become a "normal" girl herself, as if she needs to grow out of her boylove obsession, or something.

Assuming it follows the manga and so far it has been quite loyal to it, the underlying message is to accept people as they are. As with a lot of anime in the comedy genre this has so many layers it's hard to say who exactly is the butt of the joke and Kae is something like a meeting point between several different topics.

Young figure-skater coming to terms with his sexuality (senpai/kōhai relationship gone sexual, basically). 6 episodes so far, simulcast on Wednesdays (I think 21:00 your time). I'm enjoying the story and the music; I've always loved figure-skating though I can't really claim to be a follower of the sport. I gather the show is more popular than anyone expected; it's a late-night anime in Japan (2:21 air time, if I recall). According to ANN it's the first mainstream anime to normalize young adult same-sex romance. (Some viewers are still in denial about this but I suspect they won't be able to deny it much longer.)

Young figure-skater coming to terms with his sexuality (senpai/kōhai relationship gone sexual, basically). 6 episodes so far, simulcast on Wednesdays (I think 21:00 your time). I'm enjoying the story and the music; I've always loved figure-skating though I can't really claim to be a follower of the sport. I gather the show is more popular than anyone expected; it's a late-night anime in Japan (2:21 air time, if I recall). According to ANN it's the first mainstream anime to normalize young adult same-sex romance. (Some viewers are still in denial about this but I suspect they won't be able to deny it much longer.)

Not that kind of Yuri; it's just the main character's name. It's also the name of a secondary character, a competitor of the main character. The main character is a Japanese Yuri; the secondary character is a Russian Yuri. The senpai (to both, incidentally) is a Russian Victor...

Not that kind of Yuri; it's just the main character's name. It's also the name of a secondary character, a competitor of the main character. The main character is a Japanese Yuri; the secondary character is a Russian Yuri. The senpai (to both, incidentally) is a Russian Victor...